Paganism is a broad term that encompasses a diverse and ancient set of beliefs and practices. While there is no single set of beliefs that all pagans follow, there are a few themes that many pagans share. One of the central ideas in paganism is the belief in the interconnectedness of all things. This means that pagans see the divine in nature and believe that everything is connected on a spiritual level. Many pagans also believe in the concept of the divine feminine, and often worship a variety of goddesses as well as gods. Another important aspect of pagan belief is the celebration of the seasons and the cycles of nature.
“(The script) deviated a lot from the Lovecraft story,” Hardwicke says. “Mika came up with all these ideas to enrich it and introduce more human dynamics. We added more layers to it and enriched the female characters.”
Inspired by an academic lecture Lovecraft had attended about the size of the universe, The Dreams in the Witch House uses the supernatural forces of witchcraft and religion to tell a scientific story of dreams and dimensions and differential geometry. S ome circumstance had more or less suddenly given a mediocre old woman of the Seventeenth Century an insight into mathematical depths perhaps beyond the utmost modern delvings of Planck, Heisenberg, Einstein, and de Sitter.
Another important aspect of pagan belief is the celebration of the seasons and the cycles of nature. Pagans often mark the solstices and equinoxes with rituals and ceremonies. In addition to these general beliefs, there are also many different traditions within paganism, each with its own specific practices and deities.
“The Dreams in the Witch House” is a bad story. And yet…
Hardly anybody likes H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Dreams in the Witch House. Even H.P. Lovecraft didn’t like it, and subsequent readers have generally considered it one of his worst.
And, by pretty much any objective measure, it’s a bad story. For one thing, there’s no surprise or subtlety to it—Lovecraft beats the reader over the head with the legend of Keziah Mason, and her rat-like familiar, Brown Jenkin. I think he was trying for ambiguity, but he was failing spectacularly at it. Walter Gilman, the doomed protagonist of the tale, should be able to see what’s coming a mile away; the reader certainly can.
In a good weird tale, there should be some question as to whether the supernatural doings are real, or simply a hallucination by the protagonist. Lovecraft was trying to do this, but he didn’t. The evidence favoring the supernatural explanation is simply overwhelming. And needlessly drawn out. When an author tells you on page one that a witch and a rat-like monster are up to no good, the final page should contain a bigger pay-off than “a witch and a rat-like monster were up to no good.”
Lovecraft, I’ve come to realize, had no idea how to hint or imply something. This is a problem when writing horror, because it is a genre that depends heavily on subtle hinting. And Lovecraft kind of knew this, but he couldn’t do it. So what he would do instead is write this:
“Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a black throne at the centre of Chaos.”
He seems to have believed that by prefacing an outright statement with “A hint of…” that it would count as an actual hint.
Also, there are a number of lines that just sound downright silly. Like:
“What made the students shake their heads was his sober theory that a man might—given mathematical knowledge admittedly beyond all likelihood of human acquirement—step deliberately from the earth to any other celestial body which might lie at one of an infinity of specific points in the cosmic pattern.
Such a step, he said, would require only two stages; first, a passage out of the three-dimensional sphere we know, and second, a passage back to the three-dimensional sphere at another point, perhaps one of infinite remoteness.”
It sounds so easy! And then we have this masterful bit of understatement:
“May Eve was Walpurgis Night, when hell’s blackest evil roamed the earth and all the slaves of Satan gathered for nameless rites and deeds. It was always a very bad time in Arkham…”
In addition to these technical flaws, Witch House is one of Lovecraft’s nastiest tales. The sacrifice scene at the end is grotesque, and of course, it wouldn’t be Lovecraft without casual racial bigotry. What’s truly odd is that Lovecraft creates a story in which the poor, un-educated, and superstitious immigrants are clearly right in their beliefs, and the WASP upper-class is demonstrably wrong, and yet Lovecraft likes the WASPs better anyway.
It’s a badly-constructed, badly-written, and badly-paced tale, with a heavy emphasis on gore and none of the subtlety that Lovecraft at his best was capable of. And it comes with a side-serving of class arrogance and racial hatred. (BTW, I am a descendant of Eastern-European immigrants to the northeast United States, rather like the ones Lovecraft treats with utter contempt in this tale. Who are you calling “clod-like,” HPL?)
So, why do I re-read this horrible little tale every April?
Part of it is, I read it for the first time as a college student during spring term, and so I had some instant sympathy for poor Walter Gilman. Studying for exams is stressful enough without being abducted by long-dead witches and taken into other dimensions.
Also, Gilman is, in his own way, kind of heroic. He does ultimately fight back against the evil cosmic forces, and to some extent succeeds in thwarting them—even if it doesn’t work out well for him. Unusually for a Lovecraft character, he doesn’t just observe the horror and go mad, but takes some sort of corrective action. I kind of like that, even though the scene itself is six different kinds of ugly. (Also: why does the witch recoil from the crucifix? Oops, did someone have to undercut his entire atheistic literary philosophy in order to make his plot resolve itself?)
And finally, this book introduced me to Walpurgis Night, which is a great way for a Halloween-obsessed lunatic such as myself to get a mid-year fix. It’s not the really strong stuff, but it can keep me going for those long six months.
In his essay Good Bad Books, George Orwell defined same as “The kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished… They form pleasant patches in one’s memory, quiet corners where the mind can browse at odd moments, but they hardly pretend to have anything to do with real life.”
This is what Lovecraft and a lot of the “pulp” writers of the era were doing. There aren’t any pretensions about these kinds of stories. (Indeed, since Lovecraft never intended to publish Witch House, he had no reason to be pretentious.)
That’s probably why stories like Witch House, that suck by standard measures, still have this quality of being re-readable. They’re authentic—when you read Lovecraft, you’re not getting what editors and publishers thought was a good book. You’re getting undiluted “Yog-Sothothery,” as Lovecraft called his peculiar style, straight from the bottle.
It’s almost like Lovecraft, in spite of his prejudices and unwillingness to curb his own bad writing habits, was able to tap in to some core principles that make for a good horror story.
Describing Keziah Mason, Lovecraft wrote:
[S]ome circumstance had more or less suddenly given a mediocre old woman of the Seventeenth Century an insight into mathematical depths perhaps beyond the utmost modern delvings of Planck, Heisenberg, Einstein, and de Sitter.
Similarly, it seems as if some circumstance gave a mediocre man of the 20th century an insight into writing horror that is perhaps beyond many modern practitioners of the genre.
Produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman
Some of the most well-known pagan traditions include Wicca, Druidry, and Asatru. Overall, paganism is a diverse and complex spiritual path that encourages a deep connection with nature and a reverence for the divine in all its forms..
Reviews for "The Impact of Paganism on Art and Literature"
1. Maria - ★☆☆☆☆
I found "What is a pagans beliefs" to be misleading and lacking in depth. The book barely scratched the surface of pagan beliefs and did not provide enough information to truly understand their practices. The author seemed to have a biased perspective and did not present a balanced view of paganism. Overall, I was disappointed with this book and would not recommend it for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of pagan beliefs.
2. John - ★★☆☆☆
I had high hopes for "What is a pagans beliefs" but was ultimately let down. The book seemed to focus more on debunking myths and misconceptions about paganism than actually explaining the beliefs and practices. While it did offer some basic information, it did not go into enough detail for me to fully grasp the concepts. Additionally, the writing style was dull and lacked engagement. I was left wanting more, and I think there are better books out there for someone interested in learning about paganism.
3. Sarah - ★★☆☆☆
"What is a pagans beliefs" felt like a shallow introduction to paganism. The information provided was overly simplified, and I did not feel like I gained a deeper understanding of the topic after reading this book. The author's writing style was repetitive, and the constant restatement of basic concepts became tedious. I was hoping for a more comprehensive exploration of pagan beliefs, but this book fell short of my expectations. I would recommend looking for a more in-depth and well-rounded resource on paganism.
4. Michael - ★☆☆☆☆
As someone who was genuinely interested in learning about pagan beliefs, "What is a pagans beliefs" left me highly dissatisfied. The book lacked organization, making it difficult to follow the author's train of thought. Moreover, the content was dry, and the author's personal bias seeped through, making me question the objectivity of the information presented. I would not recommend this book to anyone serious about understanding pagan beliefs - there are much better resources available.